People, in their pathological NEED to insist that slavery has no long term effects, have never once
People, in their pathological NEED to insist that slavery has no long term effects, have never once considered the impact of being sold on an auction block. I wrote a paper in grad school examining the impact of being sold for $1000 when the person next to you is sold for $100. How does that effect the self-esteem of each slave? How does it warp your sense of self if you feel proud to be sold for the highest amount, to feel like the best nigger on the block? What about the slaves who were sick and old who were sold for $10 or as add-ons in a two for one deal? The entire system of slavery warped any healthy sense of self we might have had. Africans who were enslaved did not speak the language, they had no concept of the Western monetary system was so they weren’t burdened with the same debilitating and unhealthy trauma. Once a slave was born in this country, once his parents were born here, they understood from as early as possible that they were a possession, a thing, an animal with a pricetag. Parents passed down their beliefs to their children and the messages of the plantation are still with us. We STILL see light skinned women as more valuable. We still see dark skinned men as more valuable. We are still mentally enslaved.Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Kentucky were slave breeding states. Slaves were bred like livestock to be sold to Southern states to pick crops. What impact did that have on the slaves who were breeding slaves, those whose jobs it was to produce children to be sold. Women were raped by the slave owner or forced to breed with the biggest buck in order to produce the darkest field slaves. Think about how that damages the psyche of a woman, of her children. Think about how horrific slavery was before you say, “Slavery was in the past, let it go.” -- source link